Saturday, February 20, 2010

self-deprecation

I'm watching, or rather studying, Citizen Kane and the best documentary made about it, The Battle Over Citizen Kane. I'll have more to say about it later, but I just love Orson Welles, the man. He reminds me of myself, though a very extroverted version and unapologetically arrogant version. He's what I would be if I truly Didn't Give A Fuck.

This is especially true in how he uses a system to totally mock and deprecate the same system. In this case, the film industry. It is remarkably similar to Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, which outraged Louis B. Mayer. Both films can boast being the greatest films of their time -- Kane can boast being the greatest film of all time -- and in so doing they reveal the very motion picture system in which they work to be full of shit. It reminds me of how I function in the university. It's rather like being an intellectual spy, or, as in Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, a philosophical detective.

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About Me

An obscurantist who takes pleasure in holding the unpopular view, dynamiter of the Train of Progress, and vehement defender of Dead White Men.
Also a guitarist: listen to demos at ReverbNation.com/JohnnieOrson